scholarly journals Polycentric Environmental Governance to Achieving SDG 16: Evidence from Southeast Asia and Eastern Africa

Forests ◽  
2022 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 68
Author(s):  
Sacha Amaruzaman ◽  
Do Trong Hoan ◽  
Delia Catacutan ◽  
Beria Leimona ◽  
Maimbo Malesu
Keyword(s):  
Southeast Asia ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Environmental Governance ◽  
Legal Framework ◽  
Eastern Africa ◽  
Specific Reference ◽  
The Sustainable Development ◽  
Polycentric Governance ◽  
Resource Governance ◽  
Natural Resource Governance

Effective environmental governance is deemed essential in advancing the Sustainable Development Goals. However, environmental dimensions have no specific reference across the SDG 16 targets and indicators. In achieving SDG 16—the realization of peace, justice, and strong institution, polycentric environmental governance involving multiple actors across scales deserves thoughtful consideration. This study illustrates the potential of a polycentric approach to environmental governance in achieving SDG 16, using case studies of forest, watershed, and transboundary bushland and seascape management in Southeast Asia and Eastern Africa, namely Vietnam, Indonesia, and the Kenya–Somalia cross-border. By highlighting four key elements of polycentric governance namely, political will, legal framework, support from higher-level governance and capacity building, the case studies demonstrate that polycentric governance play a significant role in achieving three environment-relevant SDG 16 targets, yet these targets are silent about environmental governance dimensions. Since many conflicts arise from the environment and natural resources sector, we suggest that (i) polycentric environmental governance be strongly pursued to achieve SDG 16, and (ii) SDG 16 includes indicators specifically directed on polycentric environment and natural resource governance.

scholarly journals Spirit Ecologies and Customary Governance in Post-conflict Timor-Leste

2019 ◽  
Vol 175 (4) ◽  
pp. 474-505
Author(s):  
Lisa Palmer ◽  
Andrew McWilliam
Keyword(s):  
Southeast Asia ◽  
Environmental Governance ◽  
Family Networks ◽  
Resource Governance ◽  
Post Conflict ◽  
The Social ◽  
Timor Leste ◽  
Living Nature

Abstract In post-conflict Timor-Leste, the concepts of spirit ecologies and intergenerational wellbeing direct our attention to the ways in which Timorese people derive strength from house-based family networks as well as protective and productive spiritual relations with living nature. These practices of exchange resonate with a comparative body of research that has described similar ‘spiritscapes’ elsewhere in Southeast Asia and their relevance for social and environmental governance. Exploring the diverse ontologies of particular Timorese ‘spirit ecologies’ and their embedding in a concept of more-than-human ‘intergenerational wellbeing’, in this article we investigate the renewed significance of these ‘house-based’ practices for social and environmental governance in Timor-Leste. We argue that despite the challenges, multiple engagements of mutually appropriated, transgenerational debt obligations and ritually regulated forms of resource governance are emerging as cultural, and increasingly state-sanctioned, strategies aimed at rebuilding the social and environmental commons.

Performance of community-based natural resource governance for the Kafue Flats (Zambia)

2010 ◽  
Vol 37 (3) ◽  
pp. 296-302 ◽  
Author(s):  
BIMO A. NKHATA ◽  
CHARLES M. BREEN
Keyword(s):  
Rural Communities ◽  
Natural Resource ◽  
Environmental Governance ◽  
Governance System ◽  
Community Based ◽  
System Perspective ◽  
Resource Governance ◽  
Natural Resource Governance ◽  
Governance Systems ◽  
Practical Experiences

SUMMARYThe performance obstacles surrounding community-based natural resource management (CBNRM) in southern Africa have much to do with understanding of environmental governance systems and how these are devolved. CBNRM appears to be failing because of flawed environmental governance systems compounded by their ineffective devolution. A case study in Zambia is used to illustrate why and how one CBNRM scheme for the most part faltered. It draws on practical experiences involving the devolution of decision-making and benefit-distribution processes on a floodplain wetland known as the Kafue Flats. While this CBNRM scheme was designed to facilitate the devolution of key components of an environmental governance system, the resultant efforts were largely unsuccessful because of the poor social relationships between government actors and local rural communities. It is argued that in Zambia, at least from an environmental governance system perspective, CBNRM has mostly failed. While generally bringing some marginal improvements to local communities, the construction and execution of an effective environmental governance system have been largely flawed.

A Political Ecology of Sovereignty in Practice and on the Map: The Technicalities of Law, Participatory Mapping, and Environmental Governance

2014 ◽  
Vol 27 (3) ◽  
pp. 595-619 ◽  
Author(s):  
TYLER MCCREARY ◽  
VANESSA LAMB
Keyword(s):  
Political Ecology ◽  
Environmental Governance ◽  
Local Ecological Knowledge ◽  
Ecological Knowledge ◽  
Effective Governance ◽  
Resource Governance ◽  
Natural Resource Governance ◽  
Nation States ◽  
Territorial Boundaries ◽  
Governance Processes

AbstractThis article examines the relationships between representations and operations of sovereignty in natural resource governance. We advance a ‘political ecology of sovereignty’, examining the participation of non-state actors in resource governance processes. We particularly argue that processes of integrating subaltern populations through mapping local ecological knowledge can modify effective governance practices while nonetheless reproducing the legibility of state sovereign authority and its territorial boundaries. Exploring the Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline in Canada, we suggest that state jurisdictional authority is secured through incorporating indigenous interests as a delimited geography of tradition. Examining the Hatgyi hydroelectric development along the Thai–Burmese border, we argue that the territorial boundaries of those nation-states are rearticulated through the governance of this transboundary development. Through these cases, we demonstrate how the insertion of local knowledge works not only to reconfigure effective governance processes but also to reinforce the effect of state sovereignty in new ways.

Bourdieu in the North: Practical Understanding in Natural Resource Governance

2013 ◽  
Vol 38 (3) ◽  
pp. 333-358 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ken J. Caine
Keyword(s):  
Natural Resource ◽  
Social Practice ◽  
Power Relations ◽  
Environmental Governance ◽  
Cultural Landscapes ◽  
Resource Governance ◽  
Theory Of Practice ◽  
Natural Resource Governance ◽  
The North ◽  
Resource Managers

Natural resource management (NRM) analyses often avoid understanding environmental governance as arising from and shaped by social practices and power relations in resource conflicts, contested property rights, and political-economic strategies. I examine a northern Canadian Aboriginal community’s experience of a structured yet dynamic socio-cultural response to a period of social and political change. Drawing from Pierre Bourdieu’s conception of social practice I suggest that a diffuse, or less-determinist, theory of practice may help explain how power relations are interwoven throughout yet applied differentially in NRM governance. Drawing on ethnographic research on northern watershed management and protection of Aboriginal cultural landscapes, I propose the notion of practical understanding to explain the ways government resource managers and community leaders challenge and negotiate one another’s conceptions of environmental governance in a duel process of cooperation-conflict.

scholarly journals Analysis of national and local governance systems to achieve the sustainable development goals: case studies of Japan and Indonesia

2019 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 179-202 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kanako Morita ◽  
Mahesti Okitasari ◽  
Hiromi Masuda
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Sustainable Development Goals ◽  
Local Governance ◽  
Legal Framework ◽  
Strategy Development ◽  
Governance System ◽  
The Sustainable Development ◽  
Governance Systems ◽  
Development Goals

Abstract To achieve the sustainable development goals (SDGs), all countries’ efforts are essential, and each country needs to recognize their level of achievement in terms of the SDGs, identify the goals and targets that require more effort, and build more effective and well-performed governance systems to accelerate their efforts toward achieving the SDGs. This study identifies different governance system structures for achieving the SDGs and the challenges they face in improving their performance using a new matrix tool to evaluate governance systems for the SDGs. We use Japan and Indonesia as case studies to provide perspectives from countries at different levels of economic development. The results show that the governance systems for the SDGs are structurally and functionally different in the two countries, which face different challenges. Japan has relatively well-structured “vision and objective setting”, “research and assessment”, and “strategy development”, but faces challenges in relation to “implementation” and “monitoring, evaluation, and review”, while Indonesia has relatively well-structured “research and assessment”, “strategy development”, and “monitoring, evaluation, and review.” However, Indonesia faces challenges in relation to “vision and objective setting” and “implementation.” We found that the differences in the governance systems for the SDGs have arisen in relation to three key elements: differences in the development of governance systems for the SDGs, differences in the lead ministries, and the existence or otherwise of a supportive legal framework. We argue that the proposed matrix tool is useful in identifying the structure of governance systems for the SDGs and the challenges that must be overcome to improve the performance of these systems. However, some analytical limitations must be overcome before the tool can be applied to other countries.

National Human Rights Institutions and Sustainable Development with Specific Reference to Selected African Examples

2020 ◽  
Vol 53 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
John Mubangizi
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Best Practice ◽  
Specific Reference ◽  
African Countries ◽  
The Sustainable Development ◽  
Study Approach ◽  
National Human ◽  
Development Goals ◽  
National Human Rights Institutions

That National Human Rights Institutions (NHRIs) play an important role in the protection and promotion of human rights is a well-known fact. This has been widely acknowledged by the United Nations (UN). Also well-known is the fact that several African countries have enacted new constitutions during the last two to three decades. One of the most salient features of those new constitutions is that they establish NHRIs, among other things. Given their unique role and mandate, these NHRIs can and do play an important role in the realisation of the sustainable development goals contained in the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Adopting a case study approach, this article explores the role NHRIs have played in the promotion and protection of human rights in selected African countries and implications for sustainable development in those countries. The main argument is that there are several lessons African countries can learn from each other on how their NHRIs can more meaningfully play that role. Accordingly, best practice and comparative lessons are identified and it is recommended that NHRIs can contribute to sustainable development more meaningfully if they can make themselves more relevant, credible, legitimate, efficient and effective.

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